June 22, 2012

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Bicycling requires a specific mentality. It demands you accept sole responsibility for your momentum. Wind and incline contradict you. Every agonizing second of that contradiction, pings your resolve. You either respond with a willful decision to move forward or you let resistance stop you. If you don't let it stop you, the willful decision to move forward becomes second nature. Resistance becomes irrelevant.

This is the independent, self-directed mentality that propels cyclists. Its also the mentality that propels entrepreneurs. Unsurprisingly, it is the mentality that drives a cyclist to be an entrepreneur.

June 8, 2012

The People of Detroit has allowed me to cross paths with folks I would not have met otherwise - given my basal metabolic rate curmudgeonly reclusiveness. Over the past year I've been obliged to attend a few events on behalf of TPOD. At several of these events, I've noticed a young man who was conspicuously tall while at the same time having a general affect that was inconspicuously unassuming. As fortuity would have it, I even accidentally collected evidence of this young man's unique disposition.

At the end of March, I made portraits of people who attended the launch of the Urban Innovation Exchange (UIX is a media initiative led by Issues Media Group with support from The Knight Foundation. The project is dedicated to profiling individuals who head and participate in community activities with a broad social impact. I will periodically contribute content from TPOD to the UIX project). One of the people I photographed was the dualistic mystery man.

June 7, 2012

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I started this project way back when because I wanted to share with the rest of the world what I loved about my hometown and its people. That said, I never intended it to be a platform for blind boosterism. If I encounter something that displeases me in my everyday life as a Detroiter – in my everyday life as an sentient being – that displeasure will more likely than not seep into a TPOD post.

That said, the past couple of posts have been admittedly heavy. In "Why Midtown is Better than Royal Oak" an incident at a suburban Starbucks led to a discussion of how social equity is affected for better or worse by the demographics of a place.

In "Dezey and the World of Tomorrow" we discussed how disproportionate religiosity in the black community leads to disproportionately high homophobia in the black community.

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As I wandered the Redbull House of Art grand opening searching for pretty girls to take pictures of, the words of the attractive, remarkably similar looking, slightly older woman mentioned in the first part of this series echoed in my soul:

"Where IS this going, Noah?"

If I was to theoretically fill The People of Detroit solely with pictures of attractive women sure it would be awesome, but what would that mean the project was? Would I have to re-write the Mission Statement? Change the name to "The Pretty Girls of Detroit"? How pervy would that be?

I snapped to consciousness and realized I was standing in the middle of the crowded exhibition hall, Camera in hand. Shivering. Lightly-misted in a clammy, cold-sweat of shame.